


The Water Nymph and the Seelie Prince

by MegumitheGreat



Category: Tales of Zestiria
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Fae & Fairies, Inspired by Firefly Path, M/M, Nymphs & Dryads, One Shot, Seelie Court, Trees, Unseelie Court, Water Nymph AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-01
Updated: 2020-02-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:22:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22513933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MegumitheGreat/pseuds/MegumitheGreat
Summary: Water nymph Mikleo lives in a mystical forest between the Lotus Kingdom and the Kio Kingdom.  One day, he and Alisha discover a tree with a face and a hole in its chest.  Mikleo goes on a journey to find whatever it is supposed to go in the hole.
Relationships: Mikleo/Sorey (Tales of Zestiria)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 48





	The Water Nymph and the Seelie Prince

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Naminette](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naminette/gifts).



> This story was inspired by Hane's [art](https://twitter.com/666_darkfeather/status/1221720021732192256?s=20) and by Naminette's "Water Nymph AU" comment somewhere in its vicinity! **As such this is a gift for both Hane and Naminette!**
> 
> I have an idea for another Fairy!AU for SorMik, but this one is NOT it. I'll write it at some point. Maybe when another SorMik event turns up.

Once upon a time, long ago when the trees were still young and the moon shined like a silver dollar in the sky, there lived a young water nymph. He lived quietly within the mystic forest near the winding river system that gave him his home among the lotus flowers and lily pads. To a normal human sullied by the everyday grime of frustration and malicious intent, he appeared as nothing more than a conspicuous mass of bubbles and mist. But to those who were pure of heart, his divine form was revealed.

White skin like blush porcelain that had never been scarred reflected the moonlight, giving him something of a ghostly look. There were times that even other forest-dwellers thought him to be an apparition visiting from the beyond. Contrasting with his pale flesh, striking violet eyes—almost like amethyst—twinkled. His light aquamarine hair swooped up to the left, creating a half-whirlpool on his forehead and hiding his dearest treasure—a golden circle with a large emerald set in its center. He was an ethereal one with the build of a slender young man yet flowing with the grace of holy maiden. And clinging to him like iridescent film was the revealing uniform of the water nymphs. Light blue flowers clustered and dotted his skin, tying around his neck and obscuring pink nipples and wrapping around his upper arms, dried leaves trailing down in their wakes to a silk skirt made of spun water that drifted and floated around his lower half. Atop his head, a grand headdress that seemed to have taken a few crystal-like wings of dragonflies or butterflies, the same flowers on his torso, and freshwater pearls strung up on threads of silver.  
He wasn’t by any means a god of water. He simply appreciated the elegances of well-put-together styles, and he adopted this one after careful calculation of what would look best in combination. His name was Mikleo.

There was a kingdom near the mystic forest called Ladylake. Here, humans named the Lotus People lived. As their named suggested, they were humans born from the water flora. While not enchanted, they were a majestic type with even commoners wearing extravagant clothes mended using the leaves and petals of their birthing buds. Mikleo only met with them on occasion when they came to his forest for medicinal herbs or new buds that were a thousand times bigger than normal. These buds would hold infants that they raised, claiming that to leave the buds to open on their own would most certainly result in the child inside to perish.

The fire fairy Lailah and the earth fairy Edna warned him to keep his distance from them for even though they were born from the forest, they were still human. And humans tainted anything they touched was corrupted. Even the illustrious Lotus Princess Alisha was not devoid of sin no matter how hard she tried to be genuinely pious. After all, like her followers, she was doomed to desire, which had brought her to the mystic forest one day.

Princess Alisha was an innocent girl that burdened herself with the well-being of her people. Light blonde hair pulled into a curling side-ponytail and intriguing eyes of demantoide, she held herself to an unforgiving high regard. She was often seen wearing her dress—bodice made from hundreds of lotus petals on her bust and velvety leaves down her midriff to the large and gliding petals that made her skirt and sleeves all tied together with a large golden chest piece inlaid with crowned diamond—and her tiara made from crystallized bubbles and pearls. She was a beautiful girl, almost beautiful enough to be mistaken as a nymph herself. It was only when she ventured into the mystic forest that her clothes would get muddied and ruined, which Mikleo would at times begrudgingly clean for her if it meant she would leave immediately and return in clothes better suited for adventuring.

But not that day. In fact, she never ran into Mikleo; he ran into her as she stood next to a tree. And when she saw him, she called his attention:

“Mikleo, I’m so glad you’re here!”

“Lady Alisha, what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be at home tending to your garden of subjects?” Mikleo asked her though with a bit of bite that was more characteristic of the sardonic and loathing Edna. His violet eyes flicked to the tree behind her. “Interesting. I’ve never seen that tree before, and Zaveid would have told Edna. She and her brother are both in charge of this place’s flora.”

“Isn’t it strange?” Alisha asked him as she turned to the tree. “I had heard from some of the apothecarists that come to collect herbs that there was a tree with a handsome face. Lo and behold, here it is.”

“Handsome?”

“You don’t think so?”

Mikleo stepped closer to the tree. The face in the tree was clearly in a deep slumber despite showing no signs of breathing. The skin was made of bark, the tussled hair of leaves. The only thing that didn’t seem to be made of wood were the pair of silvery feathered earrings that gently fluttered in the gentle breeze. The sleeping face, however, was a nice one, and Mikleo was just as captivated by it.

“I’ll admit it’s nice, but handsome? Really?” he asked her again, this time questioning her taste in faces.

“Oh, come now!” Alisha pouted. “It’s the face of an angel. But what would an angel be doing inside of a tree?”

“Angels have wings of ivory—look, those are _silver_ earrings. If anything, this may be a Seelie prince. I’ve heard that nobility had such adornments. Common nymphs and the like don’t.”

“A prince? Oh, my!” Alisha gasped with a smile. “Mikleo, help me get him out of there! If I bring him to the Lotus Kingdom, then perhaps I can—”

“With all due respect, you can’t marry someone you just met.”

“But this is a Seelie in a tree.”

“ _Especially_ a Seelie in a tree.”

Mikleo examined the Seelie prince most closely. The young man trapped in his cage of bark and roots genuinely seemed without life. He had to wonder if this was perhaps some sort of memorial. The Seelie were a peculiar type of Fey, and he wasn’t terribly fond of them since he had usually had to chase troublemaking ones from his waterways before they dropped koi in them. As the nymphs and fairies lived without much trouble with the Lotus Kingdom, Seelie and sprites lived in tandem with the Koi Kingdom under the rule of Princess Rose. And within the Seelie were the Unseelie, those of their kind that practiced dark arts. But if this were the case, why would a Seelie prince be so far from home?  
He peered closer and closer, noticing upon such thorough inspection that there was a hole where his heart would be and what appeared to be broken vines and roots. It was very strange indeed, gruesome even that someone would turn him into a tree then rip out of his heart.

“Lady Alisha, please go home,” Mikleo said somewhat urgently. “This could very well be a murder happening before us. I want you to go home and prevent anyone else from coming into these woods. This kind of magic—an Unseelie is responsible for this.”

“Murder? Unseelie?” Alisha repeated.

“Yes. This unfortunate soul must have crossed one, and they tore his heart from his chest.” He quickly turned and headed for his watery home.

“Wait, where are you going?”

“I’m going to get to the bottom of this! If I’m right, this one may not live for much longer. I must find his heart and return it to him!”

Mikleo wasted no time. He grabbed his staff—crudely made from a long piece of driftwood and tied with a water crystal on the tip—then headed out. He didn’t tell Lailah or Edna or Zaveid where he was going. He wasn’t sure himself, but he had to tell Princess Rose that someone in her kingdom was wanted for attempted murder.

\----------------------------------------------

Princess Rose, ruler of the Koi Kingdom stationed in Pendrago, was far more bombastic than her counterpart in the Lotus Kingdom. Salmon-colored fabrics that engulfed her like the fins of a giant koi fish and decorated with silver chest pieces studded with smoothed rubies and chains that delicately draped around her shoulders, she commanded her people with a vibrancy that gave life to them. Her headdress, silver fairy wings and pink flowers surrounding a single teardrop of ruby, glistened in the morning sun.

She was often accompanied by Dezel a blind Seelie, one who had earned the title of prophet because he could read the wind and tell the future. He wore a paper-thin cloak dotted with tiny white flowers that did little to hide his body and delicate snow-white wings flitted on his back when he had a reading. He had told her the night before that she would have an important visitor that morning. It would do her well to listen to his words.

And Mikleo arrived by dawn. Tired and troubled by the discovery in his mystic forest, he bowed before her. The People of Koi and their Seelie partners were amazed to see a nymph come from so far. As he explained the imprisoned Seelie prince to her, the people grew restless and uncomfortable. A murderer among them? And an Unseelie? Who would be so bold?

“Who would be so bold indeed,” he reiterated. He remained knelt before her. “Lady Rose, I know it’s rude of me to intrude on your land, but this is a very serious matter. Have the Unseelie done anything suspicious lately?”

“Not that I know of,” Rose unintentionally nonchalantly replied. “We don’t get much Unseelie coming in for audiences, and even if they did, they would be turned out for fear of the chaos they bring with them.”

“Do you see them personally?”

“Of course not!” she smiled. “I’m a princess! I have things to do. I can’t just sit on my coral keester and listen to people all day!”

“Lady Rose,” Mikleo began. “Isn’t that your job?”

She didn’t hear him. “Besides, Dezel tells me who I should and shouldn’t listen to.”

“Lady Rose, that’s probably not a good working habit—at all. If this is truly how you handle affairs, I’m surprised your kingdom still stands.”

This last response garnered a hearty “boo” from the people that was only deafened by Rose’s waving hand and sharpened tongue. “Well, if you think you’re so smart, why don’t you go and find the Unseelie you suspect? How dare you come to my kingdom and insult me!”

Then Dezel turned to his princess. “My lady,” he started calmly. “Don’t you remember I was away on business a couple days ago? I went to the Seelie Court.” All eyes turned onto him, suspense lingering in the air. What did he mean? “If I were gone from your side, and someone else had told you who to listen and not to listen to, then I’m afraid you’ve been fooled. Perhaps by the very same Unseelie that is suspected to have committed this crime.”

“But…then…” Rose was shaken by the revelation. “I thought it was strange—I had assumed you’d finished your business faster than I had thought. That means, there was a breach in our security. But why would an Unseelie target the Seelie prince?”

“Most likely to start a war. You, water nymph,” Dezel snapped at him. “You said the Seelie prince is trapped in a tree near the Lotus Kingdom?”

“Yes, and what’s more is that his heart has been cut out,” Mikleo replied.

“What the hell?” Rose, now horrified, asked.

“Definitely an Unseelie,” Dezel confirmed. “There is no doubt that there was some intention to incite war, and to use the Seelie prince’s heart as a sacrifice to ensure it happened. They must have used some of the forbidden magic to hide their presence from me.”

“But no war has happened,” Mikleo stated. “Princess Alisha hasn’t sent anyone out to fight!”

“And neither have I,” Rose added.

“That means the heart still beats,” Dezel concluded. “Lady Rose, I must advise you start a search for the Unseelie that did this. Water nymph—”

“ _Mikleo_.”

“Mikleo, I can sense the Seelie prince’s heart within the Unseelie Court. If you head there now, you can still save it!”

“But how do I save it?”

Dezel took a breath. “Prevent it from withering away. Give it the water of life and plant it somewhere it can hold onto that revitalization. It will cause you great pain, but if you can save that heart, the Seelie prince will be spared death.

Tasked with saving the Seelie prince, Mikleo took his leave. He had never been to the Unseelie Court. He only knew that it was far to the north where the cold winds blew and rivers ran dry. Life was only for an instant, and for the heart to still be beating hard to stay alive, he knew that the Seelie prince was someone enflamed with a wondrous passion for life itself. He had to save him. Someone that struggled that hard as he slept—he had to be from another world.

\---------------------------------------------------

The Unseelie Court was shrouded in a stifling darkness that choked Mikleo before he had set foot in it. It seemed like nighttime at every hour. Plants were either blackened or dead due to the lack of light, and whatever tried to persist in this realm was quickly snuffed out. Likewise, it took all of Mikleo’s energy to stay conscious. He drank his water that he deemed the elixir vitae yet still had trouble pushing through the crippling malevolence that weighed down here. His eyes adjusted to the darkness for what? There was nothing to see…except a dim tiny light tried its damnedest to flicker.

Relieved to see something in the pitch blackness, he hurried to it. The only flower that was still alive, he knelt down to a bleeding-heart flower that had been crude shoved into the barren ground. Its leaves were shriveling, curling on themselves from decay. He heard the faint heartbeat of someone just barely surviving on whatever was left in them.

_Please…Please…Please…give me water…_

It was begging to someone—anyone that could lend an ear. And the disembodied voice weeping to him, sounding so pitiful and fatigued was none other than the Seelie prince.

“Don’t worry, prince,” Mikleo tried to feign calmness as he fumbled for his staff. “Elixir—”

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” a cunning girl’s voice giggled from the darkness. “You’ll make others jealous.”

Mikleo scanned the area around him in a vain attempt to find where this needling voice was coming from. But what he found all around him instead were the masses of dead flowers—all bleeding-hearts that had long since died from lack of water and sunlight. Hundreds of thousands of souls had been cut short—humans and Fey alike.

Then she emerged. Pale white sickly skin and intoxicating wine-colored eyes. Coal-colored tree branches extended from around her neck like a collar, the black flowers and thin netting of her dress masking her girlish form. A crown of dead branches sat on her head, a veil flowing behind her. Had she not looked like a young girl, she would have been enticing to the average human male, but Mikleo knew better. Unseelie were devious creatures that were far more malicious than the prankster Seelie.

“What brings you here, nymph?” she asked. “Who dares to cross into Symonne’s domain?”

“You’ve committed murder and tried to incite a war between the two kingdoms!”

“Oh, you caught on, huh? Well, I’m afraid you’re too late to stop the snowball into calamity. That insipid prince’s heart is on the very of collapse. Once that last bit of light is snuffled out, he will become just another tree in your forest.”

Mikleo, filled with anger and disgust for this Unseelie, gripped his staff. “I won’t let him die! He’s so full of life!”

“Funny how that works—the Seelie prince was so caught up in his anxieties and fears of leading the Seelie Court that he made a deal with me. Keep his subjects from attacking the Koi Kingdom in exchange for his heart. But my deals must always be paid. If the Seelie Court won’t overrun the Koi Kingdom, then the Lotus Kingdom and Koi Kingdom will destroy each other!”

Symonne the Unseelie cackled horrendously, echoing through the ashen mountains of the north. What should be done? If the heart was rescued, the Seelie Court would attack the Koi Kingdom. If it wasn’t, the two kingdoms would kill each other and anyone in between. No, that wasn’t true. If the Seelie regained their prince, who was bursting with happiness and life in just his heart alone, he wouldn’t let such sadness happen. He didn’t know the Seelie prince personally, but something about his heart and how warm and bright it was in the darkest of places filled him with a yearning to know him. Lifting his staff, emanating a cool blue light that blinded Symonne and frightened her away, reviving all of the flowers around him, Mikleo called out:

“Elixir Vitae!”

Healing drops of rain showered the field of flowers. They wouldn’t know their way home yet, but the bleeding-heart of the Seelie prince was reinvigorated; however, only half of the problem had been solved. The bleeding-heart was revitalized, yes. How was he going to bring it back to the Seelie prince?

Dezel had said to plant it somewhere that it would stay alive until he returned it to the prince. A bleeding-heart that needed to be transferred. Life-giving water.

Carefully, Mikleo dug the flower from the cracking ground. There wasn’t much time. It would hurt him greatly; there was no other way. Gently, cautiously, gingerly; he placed the flower’s roots on his chest. Giving himself to it, he allowed it to ensnare him, burrowing deeper and deeper into his body, deriving water from his soul and nutrients from his own heart. It hurt him just like he was told it would, and it made him want to cry and laugh and get angry all at the same time. This flood of emotion filled him to the brim, and there in the back of his mind, he saw the true face of the Seelie prince. His smile was radiant like the sun, his laugh like birds singing on a warm summer day. There was no way this person feared the future—or perhaps, he didn’t let people see the truth. The tears hidden behind the smiles, the sobs that choked under his laughs. Mikleo carried himself, using the staff as a walking stick, from the Unseelie Court. It grew heavier and heavier, at times being so heavy that he wanted to give up. Then the prince’s voice would speak up:

_I must keep going…if I can lead my people to peace, then I can trust them when I take my leave. If they can lead themselves in the happiness of coming days, I can finally approach him. I want to stay with him in his forest. I may be a Seelie, but I will cast my title away if I can be with him._

These were the true thoughts of the prince. He was anxious of the future. He wasn’t afraid like Symonne had thought. The Seelie prince wanted something very different from the world he had grown to care for and was ready to let fly.

\----------------------------------------------------

When Mikleo returned to his forest, his body felt so tired. His chest was heavy with the burden of the Seelie prince’s flower, a love that had been blooming for so long. It was over the journey back to the tree that kept him trapped that he analyzed it over and over. Why? He was a prince, so why would he harbor these feelings? It didn’t make sense to him.

And the more the water nymph thought and thought as he continued on his way, he grew more comfortable with the idea. He hadn’t intended to desert his people, and the anxiety that came with trusting them to lead themselves, emancipated from his rule, had only been manipulated. The Unseelie Court were wicked beings, so there was little to no doubt that Symonne had caused him to doubt himself. Wrapping him up in a double-edged conflict that he had no reason to be in was terrible. But now that he had his heart with him, now that he could release him from the tree roots that sapped his life away to sustain itself like a massive parasite, he could at least ensure that he wouldn’t simply die.

The prince’s flower wasn’t without its own demands. After all, to have attempted to carry back in his hands would have killed it. Its roots would have been exposed to the elements and torn apart. Burying the flower in his heart was the only way to preserve it at the cost of draining him of his life.

When Mikleo arrived at the tree that held the Seelie prince captive, he noticed that no one had been near it. The Lotus Princess Alisha had returned to her kingdom. Edna and Lailah and Zaveid had gone away somewhere, most likely to tend to other parts of the forest. He dragged himself to the slumbering body within it.

“Prince, I’ve brought it,” he panted. The fatigue was hitting him hard now; he had to return the flower before he succumbed to it. “I have to put it back in the hole here, right?”

How was he going to replace the flower where it needed to go? It had wrapped itself around his heart, a parasite just like the tree. Or was it simply afraid of the possibility of dying as soon as he tried to transfer it? Mikleo knew it was going to be excruciatingly painful. He had to prepare himself.

He leaned close to the Seelie prince’s face, to his lips that were still supple despite his skin appearing like bark. At first, only their lips touched, the exhilarating sensation taking Mikleo by surprise. He had never kissed anyone, let alone a prince of a different race. Pressing into him, he reached up to the flower in his chest. He solicitously pulled the flower out of him with the power of his water while his blood mixed with it to make wispy swirls of red. In locking his lips with the prince, Mikleo prevented himself from crying out in the agony of moving the flower to its appropriate owner. He knew the wound left behind would heal in no time, but it would leave a terrible scar of where the roots had dug into him. Still, he thought, he had to help him.

And as he placed the bleeding-heart back into the hole in the prince’s chest, through squinted and teary eyes, he saw sliver of emerald be uncovered. The skin lost all definition of bark, reverting to the soft velvety skin of any other living creature, and the hair because a swirling and ruffled chestnut-colored mess. The tree itself shrank from around him and opened up to let him to fall out of it onto the water nymph. Not once did the prince let go, though. He kept kissing Mikleo, even running his hand up his side and cradling his face. Delicately, he pulled him close to his chest. With a tender hand, he erased all evidence of the wound left by the flower.

The silver feathery earrings glittered in the morning sun, little white flowers glistening with dew dotting the pearly white tunic. Under the shining grey-white cloak, pearls and diamond decorated his collar. An amethyst sash was loosely tied around his waist. His black pants shoes were dirtied with mud and pieces of wood.

“Hold on to me,” he soothingly said to Mikleo, the pain of the flower’s removal bringing streams of tears to his eyes. “I’ll make it go away.”

Mikleo didn’t know what to expect—he had never been in a situation like this, and Seelie were still not to be trusted. They weren’t as malicious as Unseelie, yet the prince was genuinely helping him. He had learned of his true feelings, but still—what if he tried something with him? After all, nymphs were still coveted. But he couldn’t be more wrong. Even though the prince kissed him again and snuck his hand under the vines of flowers covering Mikleo’s chest, there wasn’t any indication of ill intent. Instead, there was a warmth radiating from him that truly did make the insufferable pain disappear in mere seconds.

“Does it feel better?” the prince asked.

“Y-Yes…” Mikleo stammered. “A-Are you really a Seelie prince?”

“Yup!” the prince grinned at him. “Thank you for getting my heart back. Ah, wait, this is embarrassing! W-We weren’t supposed to meet like this!”

“Huh?”

The Seelie prince shot up from the ground and from Mikleo. “Ahem, my name is Sorey,” he introduced himself. “I was the Seelie prince.”

“Wait a min—”

“This is going to sounds really weird, but…I’ve…kind of…had a crush on you for a long time, and I…well, I finally did it!”

“Sorey, slow down!” Mikleo ordered him. “What do you mean? A crush? And did what?”

Sorey blushed at the thought of having to explain everything, but he didn’t have to. Mikleo realized the thoughts he had heard from the bleeding-heart were about him. Sorey explained that he had usually snuck out of the Seelie Court to visit the forest. At first, it was to visit the Lotus Kingdom to ask for a trade deal like he had with the Koi Kingdom. Along the way, he had caught a glimpse of the water nymph and all his beauty.

“It was the wind fairy and earth fairy that said you had been looking for a partner; they even told me your name, Mikleo,” Sorey smiled at him. Mikleo felt sick to his stomach—not because the prince was in love with him but because Edna and Zaveid had set him up on a blind date that only ended in catastrophe for the poor romantically inept prince. “I couldn’t stand it anymore, and I made the decision to leave my kingdom in hopes of living with you.”

“B-But you can’t just give up your kingdom for someone you just met!”

“We haven’t just met, though.” Sorey approached him gracefully. He took his hand, placed it on his chest, and then gently touched his. “You carried my heart in yours. I’m sure you heard my deepest and most inner thoughts, and I heard yours, too.”

“E-Excuse me!?”

“You thought I was handsome! You didn’t want to admit to Princess Alisha. Aside from all that, you made the journey to find my heart. The princess may have thought I was handsome, but I don’t think she would have gone out to help me like you did. For that, I’m eternally in your debt, Mikleo.” He kissed his hand.

Mikleo softened. If he was telling the truth—no, he definitely was. The days it had taken him to return with the heart was equivalent to years. By connecting to him, he felt like he had known him his entire life. Sorey, the former Seelie prince, felt like a dear friend whose precious soul showed that he was a pure and just one. The water nymph couldn’t deny it now—he had fallen in love with him in a most transcendental way.

“Will you really be okay living in this forest? It’s not as comfortable as the Seelie Court,” Mikleo told him.

“As long as I’m with you, I’ll be fine.”

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote like 75% of this story in 2 hours after watching the Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Man, it was refreshing and liberating to write something like this. So when I eventually write the REAL Fairy!AU I want to write, it's gonna be LIT.


End file.
